About

Tyler Sigman's Crows

$41,656

pledged of $16,000 goal

686

backers

What is Tyler Sigman's Crows?

Tyler Sigman's Crows is a competitive 2-4 player tile placement game where every player takes on the roll of an Outcast Mage in the world of Tessandor. A once-in-a-lifetime event is causing the crows of the Obsidian Wastes to give off mana that can be collected in magical stones. Players score points by enticing the crows to flock to their totem (their shiny object). This can potentially create murders of crows, which then disperse throughout the ever changing map keeping the strategic gameplay tense and diverse.

Crows was originally created by Tyler Sigman in 2010 and published by Valley Games. As a huge fan of Tyler's The Darkest Dungeon video game (Steam, PS4, iOS), we're incredibly excited to work with Tyler to bring this game back into production with new art, new design and some additional gameplay enhancements. After playing a round of the original Crows game, I noted it had many aspects of similar games that I love:

Simple Game Mechanics

Strong Strategic Gameplay

Classic Family-Friendly Accessibility

So having Junk Spirit Games kickstart this game back into production is a perfect way to get Crows onto your table with the quality and care that we're known for.

Quality:

We are going with the same manufacturer we went with in our previous two games. You can expect the same level of quality and attention to detail as our other projects. The artwork that Justin Hillgrove created for this game is incredible, using only black, white, and red as a color palette, save the individual hermit mage pieces which swaps the red for the player color.

Size Comparison - Carcassonne Meeple on the Right

Also, our Crow Meeples are oversized meeples (28mm), larger than normal meeples in popular games. The tiles are 50mm square and we'll have a strong large box (215mm by 275mm by 70mm) to hold all of your high quality components.

The Gameplay:

Players will start the game with one Location Tile in their hand and at the beginning of each of their turns they will draw one tile. They then choose one tile to place on the table while also then choosing an empty tile to place their Mana Totem. They can choose to play a spell from their hand if they have one and then end their turn. After each player has played once in the round, then all Crows will flock to the nearest Mana Totem, providing each player with Mana Stones to score. When Nightfall falls over the Obsidian Wastes, the game will go one more round and then the player with the most Mana Stones wins the game.

Setup and How to Play Videos:

These videos were created using our handmade prototype copy of Tyler Sigman's Crows so will vary slightly from the final production copies.

The Rules

For a PDF of our current DRAFT of the rules, check out this link on our website HERE.

How is Tyler Sigman's Crows different from the original Crows?

All in all, we have done a lot. The core game is still there, but with all of the enhancements it will feel like a completely new game if you are familiar with the old Crows.

One thing we wanted to do first was figure out ways to make the game more strategic by giving players more choice. So we implemented ways to do just that. For example, now players have a hand of 2 tiles to choose from, holding onto one tile.

We also added a variable game end so players have to play as hard as they can each turn since they won't know exactly when the game will end.

We only kept one of the original special tokens (which then became spells because of our theme) and then created new spells to make them more dynamic and exciting, and much more meaningful in their use.
We also added new tile types to increase the replayability and strategy. Through additional Stretch Goals, you will see more enhancements that will make your games of Tyler Sigman's Crows even better.

....And here is a closeup of the coins that you'll be getting in the Deluxe box. Justin created some day/night crow coins that you can additionally bring to your other games that use similar point totals.

For Justin Hillgrove Fans:

We've had some requests to sell the Original Art through the Kickstarter and through the hybrid nature of our team we can also unlock stretch goals for all backers. These are all acrylic paintings on a hardwood. Sizes:

Outcast Mages - 9" x 12"

Location Tiles - 6" x 6"

Spell Cards - 4" x 6"

We are also adding an option to purchase Justin's Original Art cover. This is an acrylic painting on a 16"x20" piece of hardwood. USA Only. Obviously we only have one available and at $695 you get the art and a Deluxe Edition of Tyler Sigman's Crows:

For more information on our current Stretch Goals, check out our Updates.

Social Media Stretch Goals:

(UNLOCKED) For this Stretch Goal, Deluxe Backers will receive 12 additional Metal Coins. We are looking for a total of 3000 followers across these four social media pages:

The above accounts have daily content about our games and what other great games we love to play with our family and friends.

"Crows" was inspired from a love of these intelligent corvid birds. Fascinating to observe and even more intriguing to study, crows continue to impress humankind with their complicated social structures and highly-developed problem solving skills. We heartily recommend reading "The Gifts of the Crow" and "In the Company of Crows and Ravens." For a window into their playful ability to bond with humans, follow "Canuck and I" on Facebook or Instagram.

Tyler Sigman has designed over a dozen published boardgames and videogames, including the IGF-nominated gothic horror RPG "Darkest Dungeon" (PC/Mac/PS4/iPad/Vita), the BAFTA-nominated turn-based "Age of Empires: the Age of Kings" (Nintendo DS), the twin-stick dragon shooter “HOARD”, and stuff like clunky old card games "Witch Hunt" and "Night of the Ill-Tempered Squirrel." He is the Design Director and Co-Founder of Red Hook Studios. His favorite game of all time is Sid Meier’s Pirates! for C-64. Follow him on Twitter @tylersigman or medium.com/@tylersigman.

Junk Spirit Games successfully launched its first game in 2015 through Kickstarter. We have a fun time creating, playtesting and producing our games but the real fun comes when we reach out to the community to share our passion for gaming. The reception we've received has been overwhelming and we are excited to continue our work in this industry.

David Gerrard is the Game Designer for JunKing and By Order of the Queen. He was the owner of a brick and mortar game store in his hometown for over 8 years. He has worked with Sabertooth Games, Games Workshop and Microsoft in the past and brings his experience and pragmatic dedication to every project.

Justin Hillgrove has been able to do a lot of amazing things as an artist – to name a few he has painted murals for Facebook in Seattle and London, worked on toys with The Coop, Rampage Toys & Funko, and created covers for Cartoon Network‘s “Adventure Time” comic, in addition to all of his own well-known creations and exhibitions. Justin’s art has a lot of whimsy and humor making it very approachable and relatable. To learn more about Justin and Explore his paintings, sketches, toys and more, check out his site HERE.

Travis Torgerson, our graphic designer, has worked in licensed product development for brands like Adventure Time, Star Trek, and The Walking Dead. He loves typography, playing card games, and drinking copious amounts of black coffee.

Shipping:

We will be using multiple fulfillment centers in key areas of the world to ship Tyler Sigman's Crows to our backers. By shipping this way, your game will be sent to you from within your country, eliminating the need for you to pay taxes or VAT fees and GREATLY decreasing your shipping cost as we are subsidizing some of your shipping costs with this work. We are collecting shipping fees after the campaign closes (via Backerkit) and once we get the final weight on the game itself.

We believe Tyler Sigman's Crows will come in around 1.5 kilos (~3 pounds). The coins in the Deluxe version and additional Stretch Goals will make the game weigh more. We are going with very thick quality components across the whole game. Here are the estimates for shipping the Standard Edition with a KS backer discount:

USA - $9

Canada - $14

EU - $18

AUS - $16

Asia - $16

South America - $50 (sorry) We also are not offering refunds after sending the game to South America or shipping the game twice.

If you are in an area that is not listed, message us and we'll be happy to get you an estimate for your region.

Retailers:

During our previous campaigns we've seen some major issues that retailers had to deal with when trying to carry our games and as a previous store owner I feel your pain.

We are dedicated to helping retailers out. Message me at david_at_junkspiritgames_dot_com with information on your FLGS store and we'll work with you to get advanced Kickstarter copies sent to you for your customers.

Risks and challenges

This is our third game and our fourth kickstarter campaign, we feel confident that this campaign to release Tyler Sigman's Crows will result in this game in your hands. Our team has experience in creating toys, art, books and games. I have participated in multiple kickstarters and one thing that brings me almost as much happiness as having the product in hand is when the team is extremely communicative about what is going on in the campaign. I’m sure you've all had similar experiences as well. We are committed to being very open about our process.

As with turning any idea into a physical object, any number of problems can get in the way. While we can’t control everything, we can control our communication to our backers. Delays may happen, dates may change. But, we will definitely let our backers know what is going on and keep everyone in the loop. Look at our other campaigns and you can see how we roll.